San Fermín 2018: The Running of the Bulls
July 6 to 14, 2018. The cleanest fiesta in 34 years: eight encierros, two gorings, and not a single run above three minutes.
What 2018 Was Really Like
2018 was the quietest I had run in years, and you felt it on the route. With 2016 still in your memory, twelve gorings in eight mornings, everyone was braced for it to happen again. It never did. Cebada Gago, who has put more runners on the ground than almost anyone, ran their 30th year with a clean run for the first time since I started. Fuente Ymbro broke their own speed record on the anniversary morning of Daniel Jimeno. By the time Miura closed it on the Saturday, the fastest of the week, you realized something rare had happened: the whole fiesta had passed in under three minutes a run, all eight of them. Only two runners caught by horn across eight mornings. Some years you leave Pamplona grateful. 2018 was one of those years.
Dennis Clancey, Founder, Encierro
The Fewest Gorings in 34 Years
The running of the bulls is never without risk, and 2018 was no exception: every morning the route held the same danger it always does, six fighting bulls covering 849 meters of narrow cobblestone from Santo Domingo to the ring, and any one of them could separate from the herd at any moment. But the numbers at the end of the fiesta told a story nobody had seen since 1984. Only two runners were gored by horn across eight mornings, the lowest total since the year Osborne bulls caught the same number in a single encierro. The last year comparable to this was not the 1990s or the early 2000s: it was over three decades ago.
The contrast with recent history made it starker. San Fermín 2016 produced 12 gorings across eight encierros, the most in recent memory. 2017 brought 7. Then 2018 arrived with its clean mornings and its record times, and the route that runners know as one of the most dangerous in the world delivered what veterans called a fiesta to be grateful for. Not one of the eight encierros lasted more than three minutes, the first time that had happened since 2015. Read the full archive or the 2019 recap to see where 2018 fits in the longer record.
Two runners gored across eight mornings. The last time Pamplona saw a number like that, Ronald Reagan was in the White House.
Official: The 2018 Cartel
Every San Fermín opens with a poster, chosen by public vote, that becomes the image of the fiesta for the year.
The 2018 San Fermín festival poster was created by Adriana Eransus Azpilicueta, selected by public vote from the annual cartel competition run by the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona. Her work joined a collection stretching back to 1846 as the official image of that year’s fiesta.
The Feria del Toro poster, a separate commission by the Casa de Misericordia de Pamplona, was the work of French artist Laurent Pallatier, known as “Loren”. His design depicted a minotauro, its back turned to the viewer, entering the Pamplona ring: a figure that was half bull, half man, wearing the red pañuelo of San Fermín, its arrival announced by a burst of yellow light. Loren described the image as asking whether the minotauro would run the encierro with the men or with the bulls.
Municipal cartel: 2018 by Adriana Eransus Azpilicueta. Feria del Toro cartel: Laurent Pallatier (“Loren”), commissioned by the Casa de Misericordia de Pamplona.
Every 2018 Encierro, Day by Day
Each of the eight runs with its ganadería, time, horn injuries, and the video. The route runs 849 meters from Santo Domingo to the ring; see the route map.
Puerto de San Lorenzo
A local runner, 38, was gored in the Santo Domingo section under the hornacina of San Fermín, the first horn injury ever recorded from this ranch in the encierro. Puerto de San Lorenzo was in just their second year at Pamplona.
José Escolar
The slowest run of the fiesta, and a clean one. After three consecutive years with a bull turning back at Santo Domingo, the Albaserradas ran the whole route and produced the first encierro in four participations with no horn injuries.
Cebada Gago
The famous Cádiz ganadería marked their 30th anniversary at San Fermín with a clean run, the first since 2007. They had gored at least one runner in every one of the seven previous encierros. The bulls caused a tangle of runners and animals at Telefónica.
Fuente Ymbro
A record: the fastest run in Fuente Ymbro’s history to that point, and their fifth consecutive year with no horn injuries. The run took place on the 9th anniversary of Daniel Jimeno Romero’s death at post 66 on Telefónica.
Núñez del Cuvillo
The Cuvillo bulls ran their slowest time since 2004, yet it was still a clean morning. A light-colored jabonero bull came close to several runners at La Curva but produced no horn injuries, ending a two-year streak of catching runners.
Victoriano del Río
A fourth straight year without a horn injury, the best clean streak at that point in Victoriano del Río’s San Fermín history. A young runner at Telefónica suffered a serious neck impact from a bull’s horns that stopped just short of a goring, captured in a widely shared photo sequence.
Jandilla
The fourth fastest Jandilla run in their San Fermín history, and the second goring of the fiesta. A runner was caught at the Plaza del Ayuntamiento section, ending a two-year clean streak for the ranch.
Miura
The fastest run of 2018 and the third time in four years that Miura produced the quickest morning of the fiesta. A fourth consecutive year with no horn injuries: Miura’s best clean streak since the 1980s. The herd came through Telefónica in a dense pack, bulls and runners compressed into one moving mass.
The Stories the Numbers Leave Out
The Tribute at Post 66
Before the fourth run, on July 10, 2018, the ninth anniversary of the death of Daniel Jimeno Romero, his family laid flowers at the fence at post 66 on Telefónica, the exact spot where their 27-year-old son was gored fatally on July 10, 2009, together with a San Fermín neckerchief bearing the names of every runner who has died in the encierro.
That morning, Fuente Ymbro ran their fastest encierro in history and finished it without a single horn injury. The bulls passed post 66 without incident. Daniel Jimeno remains the last person killed in the Pamplona encierro. Sixteen runners have died across more than a century of recorded history, and 2018 added no name to that list.
The City in 2018
The chupinazo opened the fiesta at noon on Friday, July 6, fired from the Town Hall balcony by Motxila 21, representatives of the Down Syndrome Association of Pamplona. Ibai Ganuza and Leire Zabalza stood on the balcony of the Ayuntamiento and gave the traditional words. Mayor Joseba Asirón delegated the rocket to a popular vote for the third year in a row.
The year’s official festival poster was by Adriana Eransus Azpilicueta, chosen by public vote. Nine evenings of fireworks lit the Ciudadela from July 6 to 14; the winner of the XIX International Fireworks Competition was FDS Diseño de Espectáculos Pirotécnicos of Valencia, designed by Eduardo Moreno. Nine days after the chupinazo, at midnight on July 14, the candles came out for Pobre de Mí and the fiesta closed.
2018, As the World Saw It
International coverage of the 2018 running of the bulls in Pamplona.
How 2018 Came Together
The planning and key dates, kept on the record.
The Feria del Toro cartel, a minotauro by French artist Laurent Pallatier (Loren), commissioned by the Casa de Misericordia, was presented to the public and drew wide attention.
The municipal festival poster by Adriana Eransus Azpilicueta was chosen by public vote to be the official image of San Fermín 2018.
Eight ganaderías set for the eight encierros: Puerto de San Lorenzo, José Escolar, Cebada Gago, Fuente Ymbro, Núñez del Cuvillo, Victoriano del Río, Jandilla, and Miura, in order from July 7 to 14.
The chupinazo was fired by Motxila 21, representatives of Pamplona’s Down Syndrome Association, opening nine days of fiesta.
Eight encierros, all completed in under three minutes: the first time that had happened since 2015. Two runners gored by horn across all eight mornings: the fewest since 1984.
Pobre de Mí closed the fiesta with the traditional candlelit farewell in the Plaza del Castillo.
San Fermín 2018, Answered
How many runners were gored in San Fermín 2018?
Two, the fewest since 1984. One runner was gored on July 7 by a Puerto de San Lorenzo bull in Santo Domingo, and one on July 13 by a Jandilla bull near the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. The other six encierros produced no horn injuries.
Which ganaderias ran in San Fermín 2018?
Puerto de San Lorenzo (July 7), José Escolar (July 8), Cebada Gago (July 9), Fuente Ymbro (July 10), Núñez del Cuvillo (July 11), Victoriano del Río (July 12), Jandilla (July 13), and Miura (July 14).
What was the fastest encierro of 2018?
Miura on July 14, in 2 minutes and 12 seconds, the third fastest in the ranch’s Pamplona history at the time. The slowest was José Escolar at 2 minutes 57 seconds. No run exceeded three minutes, the first time that had happened since 2015.
Was anyone killed in the 2018 running of the bulls?
No. The last death in the Pamplona encierro was Daniel Jimeno Romero, who was gored on July 10, 2009. 2018 marked the ninth anniversary of his death; his family held their annual tribute at post 66 on Telefónica that morning.
Who fired the chupinazo at San Fermín 2018?
Motxila 21, representatives of the Down Syndrome Association of Pamplona. They were chosen by public vote, continuing the tradition Mayor Joseba Asirón established of delegating the honor to popular choice. The fiesta opened at noon on July 6, 2018.
The story continued in 2019.
2018 set a standard of speed and clean running that the next fiesta would have to answer. See what happened when the bulls came back, or learn the route before you run it.